Thing of the Day

New Stik, Explosions In The
Sky, David J Roch, Helldorado

April
2nd 2011

A fresh piece of Stik
wall
work that’s just appeared this week on a now blue building on Triangle
Road, here in E8, just by London Fields. Saw them sitting there as we
were passing in the twilight, two Stik figures looking a
little
sad under that Japanese flag, maybe a show of empathy with the
earthquake and tsunami victims. More and more character every time in
just those six lines Stik uses…

And while you’re admiring the new Stik Thing of The Day, here’s a trio
of new albums and some words about those albums….

EXPLOSIONS IN THE
SKY – Take Care, Take
Care, Take Care
(Bella Union) - in which Explosions in The Sky drift past in
a
pleasant cloud of relatively easy, even-paced, nice enough post rock
shoegazing warmth. All anthemic and easy on the ear and all very
‘nice’. Take Care
is an album
that’s all pretty much on the same level and we could put forward lots
of arguments about it really being post rock in the way that every inch
of rock testosterone, bite, danger and everything else has been washed
away and this is just ‘nice’ flowing pleasant music made on ‘nice’
‘smooth’ ‘satisfying’ guitars and things – not sanitised, not soulless,
not machines, just nice pleasant easy flowing satisfying uplifting
tunes, ‘nice’ unimposing guitars and mildly paced clouds floating by,
nothing that sticks around, enjoyable enough for the moment, quickly
forgotten..
Oh look, we could get involved in all
kinds of reasoning and discussion, bottom line here is that Take Care
is an easy-going, pleasant harmless simple puppy dog of an album and to
kick it when it really hasn’t done anything wrong would be unnecessary
and just a little bit cruel. This is breezy instrumental post-rock
politeness, this is sitting back safely watching clouds and gentle U2
riffs, Cocteau Twins without all the candyfloss fog that passes for
vocals, just clean cut tunes that float by without really registering
anymore than eating marshmallows does - the pace is polite, none of
your loud/quiet extremes here, all of it easily flowing in the middle
ground in a pleasantly comfortable and relatively enjoyable
what’s-all-the-fuss-about manner…and now we’ll take the disc out of the
CD player and as pleasant as it was, probably never ever have the urge
to ever go back to it when there’s so many other things we could pull
down from the shelf and partake of…
The album is out on April 18th in the UK and
later in
April in other places around the globe. There’s a free download taster
of the shortest of the tracks on the band’s website. Artwork
looks impressive, especially the vinyl version of the release (we’ve
just got an advance CD with an artwork-free fact-bearing
cover. www.explosionsinthesky.com

DAVID J ROCH – Skin + Bones
(Dram) – No doubting this singer/songwriter from Sheffield is
in
possession of a remarkable, almost supernatural vocal range - hard to
believe it really is all him, no reason to doubt it though.
David
J Roch’s debut album is a collection of slightly dark, alternative
romantic songs that come with an occasional epic sweep and, at
different times, the feel of both Tim and Jeff Buckley. Not quite the
songs or the fragile beauty to really compare his work to that of Nick
Drake, but there are folky moments that are heading somewhere near that
way, or indeed, in that voice, towards the magic of Billie Holiday. The
songwriting may just be a tiny bit too obvious, could well be a singer
songwriter of some significance emerging here though, certainly a voice
of some significance..Skin + Bones
is out on April 4thwww.myspace.com/davidjrochhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HFQ7AoyIoIE

HELLDORADO – Sinful Soul
(CCAP) - A whole load of soul driven blues on this album: Nick Cave
favoured Tindersticks and runs around the dream city film club with
that girl who lips were made for kissing everyone else but you.. They
sound as natural as whiskey, as right as mixing a dose of the Bad Seeds
with large slice of Bacharach. Great big arrangements sitting
comfortably next to stripped down soul flavoured dark edged rock ‘n
roll. Classy sound drenched in atmosphere and barroom spills, in
Morricone and Tarrantino, in dramatic murder ballads, heavy drinking,
Johnny Cash, big boots, Americana, burning hot deserts.... They’re from
Norway, they do their chosen thing with a whole load of impressive style